Aftercooler vs Intercooler for S/C setup
 

There are plenty of posts going back for years on whether the standard aftercoolers that come with the Comptech and Vortec kits are superior to one of the intercooler setups or a custom configuration. Problem is, none of them reach any real conclusions and the few that at least have opinions generally go OT in a pointless debate between armchair engineers debating theories.

Has anyone done any real testing of intake temps or even subjective observations with both aftercooled and intercooled setups? I'm sure there are valid reasons why most of the s/c kits have come with a/c's but with many people are running 2x (or more) the boost levels that these kits were originally designed for, is it still the best setup? Living in Florida and running around 10lbs of boost I have been considering a higher capacity front radiator (SOS sells one, Tech2 does/or did) vs. a FMIC like UR's.

What got me thinking is this vendor's kit:
Intercooler Kit

Which looks pretty much looks like a copy of Ultimate Racing's kit:
UR FMIC Kit

The kit is not that much more than just adding SOS's larger radiator to my current system. I guess it comes down to whether the greater loss of boost is made up for by lower temps. Any thoughts on whether it's worth pursuing an upgrade radiator to an a/c, a fmic setup or should I just jump on the meth bandwagon? :)

Ooh a blatant copy. Gotta love those. They even copied our description line by line!

Darryl

Ya, I thought it was a bit much that even the positioning of the individual pieces in the picts were almost exactly the same too...

Truth. However, their pricing seems to be significantly cheaper than the UR kit. Might be worth it to check it out for the s/c guys looking for a FMIC.

Anything copied and mass produced in China is going to be significantly cheaper than the original.

Darryl

It also looks like the other one uses an extra pipe, and has the barbs welded for the air pump and something else.

I purchased the UR kit. I have yet to put it on, next week, but the looks of it are amazing. Nice welds.

whats everyones setup who have a vortech or comptech and a 12psi pulley. does the stock a/c get the job done?

That pretty much sums up my question.

I'd definitely like to hear your impressions and see some picts of the install! :thumbup: